More than 100 private firms in line to boost vaccination drive

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Applications of more than 100 private firms are being reviewed by the National Health Authority (NHA), to integrate their apps or portals with the CoWIN platform through the Application Programming Platform (API), in a move aimed at fast-tracking the national Covid vaccination programme, Mint reported on Wednesday. Most of the applications were from state governments, travel portals and pharmaceutical firms. According to the NHA, more than 36 government and private organisations have integrated their portals or mobile applications, while more than 213 have been granted access. Out of these, 195 are private entities and 18 are government organisations.

Reliance (Jio Haptik), PhonePe, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Bajaj Finserv, Vodafone Idea, Max Bupa, Easytrip, Google, Ibibo, ICICI Lombard, Infosys, Max Healthcare, Paytm, Dr Reddy’s and Apollo Hospitals are the private firms that have applied for accessing the CoWIN API.

More apps to make vaccination people centric

The Indian Institutes of Technologies (IITs) in Mumbai and Dharwad, Canara Bank, National Informatics Centre, the National Health Mission’s Chhattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh units, Kerala, West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh’s health departments were granted permissions as the states seek to achieve higher vaccination rates.

Also, e-pharma entities like Tata 1 mg and Pharmeasy have got permissions for the same.

By integrating its geoportal Bhuvan with the CoWIN portal, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will provide information on vaccination center locations, dosage, availability and type.

Travel companies like MakeMyTrip are also integrating their apps with CoWIN as interstate travel is opening up, which would enable visitors to produce vaccination certificates during a trip to other states. The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) is also using the service.

This was done with an intent to enable stakeholders like private service providers, states and Union Territories (UTs) to provide vaccine related services and offer a better user experience and choice to people for easy access to vaccines, the publication said.